We are excited to announce that Harrison Riley, co-founder and managing partner at CH4 Capital and founder at Glass Beach Ventures, has joined Subskribe as an Advisor. Harrison brings extensive experience in the quote-to-revenue space, having spent nearly a decade at Okta managing business operations, processes, and systems, and serving on the Salesforce CPQ Customer Advisory Board for nearly four years. In the following guest post, Harrison details why he joined Subskribe and why he’s so excited about Subskribe’s product and future.

Why am I excited to be an Advisor at Subskribe?

In the realm of CPQ, the advice of "not reinventing the wheel" doesn't hold true. Unlike a wheel, CPQ is not merely a point solution; it is a critical tool that underpins your go-to-market strategy, pricing and packaging, revenue recognition, cross-selling, and more. It goes beyond being a repository for your product catalog. Many companies come to this realization at different stages, and I am here to ensure that you don't overlook the significance of CPQ in optimizing your operational efficiency. Subskribe knows this and has a major bias toward action, while other vendors simply say it. 

‍Who am I?

My expertise lies in integrating go-to-market business operations with the back office, field teams, and technology teams. I specialize in aligning processes and technology to streamline the customer journey. I have successfully implemented multiple CPQ systems, served on the Custom Advisory Board at Salesforce CPQ, and led front office CPQ <> ERP integration efforts during my tenure at Okta. Okta’s rapid growth and fast-paced environment provided an incredible opportunity to build, iterate, fail, iterate, and succeed. If Subskribe existed in 2012, my journey (below) doesn’t have to be yours. 

‍Your CPQ journey across different company growth phases will look like this:

  • Start-up: In the initial stages, it can be a bit chaotic, akin to the Wild West. Salespeople create order forms from scratch, selling products that your company “probably” has, and pass them on to the accounting department (usually one person juggling multiple roles). Good luck!
  • Growth: As your company expands, it recognizes the importance of establishing processes and systems. With a shoestring budget provided by the CEO, you are instructed to buy and implement a CPQ, likely by yourself. Again, good luck!
  • Early Maturation: At this stage, your existing CPQ system may start showing signs of strain. It's time to upgrade to an "enterprise" version and replace the old CPQ system that you painstakingly implemented. Now, a larger shoestring budget is allocated, but insufficient resources and staffing leads to a number of issues, namely lack of planning on the data migration effort. New CPQ is now live, but with no historical data 😊.
  • Maturity: Seemingly, your luck has run out. Now it’s time to pay a consulting firm millions of dollars to fix everything and build something custom. This new custom CPQ has no utility outside of your current company, and your future job prospects evaporate. 

Why Subskribe?

Subskribe offers a range of benefits that set it apart from the competition:

  • Laser focus on SaaS. The problem with many of the current CPQ solutions out on the market is they’re trying to please too many people. Sales quoting for a jet engine manufacturer is going to be entirely different from quoting at a software company. And this is why Subskribe shines. Instead of putting in a million different customizations and features to fit every business on the planet, essentially making an untenable product, Subskribe is building features and solutions specifically aimed at addressing SaaS use cases and workflows.
  • A modern interface. Using Subskribe is a breath of fresh air. It’s straightforward and intuitive, and sales reps can pick it up on their own just like a consumer app. It’s built with the end user in mind, and it shows.
  • Low drag implementation. One of the biggest barriers in adopting a new CPQ is the implementation piece. I’ve implemented and re-implemented countless CPQ systems myself, and I know firsthand how much of a bear it can be. There are true horror stories of systems taking two years to implement, which is why Subskribe’s speed of deployment is such a distinguishing factor. Their customer stories of going live in just a few weeks is simply incredible.
  • A single, unified system. Subskribe’s order concept is simple but brilliant. The quote is the order is the invoice is the revenue, eschewing the need for separate quoting, billing, and revenue recognition systems and cumbersome integrations.
  • Constant innovation. What excites me the most about Subskribe is the team they’ve built. This all-star team is deploying features that bigger players in the market have only talked about. It’s not just lip service with Subskribe. They are actively innovating, and it’s clear to me that, even at this early stage, they are already the leaders in the space.